Being tough on crime is always an easy sell especially when it goes against all the evidence collected by those ivory tower criminal law soft on crime creeps that people love to hate. So even though the evidence is on the whole against harsher sentences for youth crimes deterring crime and even though the evidence may be that youth crime is not actually increasing this is not relevant. What is relevant is the votes to be snagged by being harder on crime. In fact the Conservatives will introduce more crime legislation and even make it a confidence matter if there should be a Conservative minority government. The Conservatives would love an election based upon who is hardest on criminals! Here is a Globe columnist who supports the suggested changes by the Conservatives but as denunciation rather than deterrence. At least this gets around the fact that the deterrence argument does not square with the evidence.
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And to my mind, this proposed change and the others have nothing to do with deterrence, even though the Tories keep saying they do, and everything to do with denunciation, the public calling to account for one's crimes. .......
Perhaps this denunciation function should be expanded. Why not have public stocks as in medieval times? People have their arms locked in place and are publicly displayed as criminals. People could throw insults etc. at them and get all those pent up feelings of hatred released in a legal and public manner. Come to think of it we should re-introduce public hangings too. It might provide some gainful employment for pickpockets as masses of people congregate to witness the public denunciation of the murderer.
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